Abstract
This paper provides a historical overview of the treatment of the problem of collisions throughout the 17th century, up to the great mechanical synthesis of Newton. At first we present the pioneering approaches of Thomas Harriot and Isaac Beeckman. We then proceed to Descartes's attempt to solve the problem by briefly presenting his philosophical foundations and the systematic construction he sought, which ultimately turned out to be wrong. We then proceed to the analysis of the formulations proposed by Christopher Wren, John Wallis and Christiaan Huygens, all of them achieving correct results, albeit with restricted application. We seek to highlight the particularities of each of these elaborations, emphasizing the pioneering introduction in physics of the use of negative numbers in determining the direction of motion, carried out by Wren and Wallis, and the extremely systemic character of Huygens's mechanical thinking, building his solution from the application of fundamental physical principles, some already known and others outlined by him.
Keywords:
History of Physics; Mechanics; Collisions; Quantity of motion
